‘Great secret keepers, I hear,’ I joke.
‘We would know,’ she responds, biting back her grin.
It’s all I need to hear. To know she remembered. To see her smile from that memory too. That not everything in my past has soured. I get back to my drawing, sketching out lots of little stars across the wall, adding a moon too.
Honey showers the dark wall with long-stemmed flowers boasting pink and orange petals. Even draws a little bee buzzing by one of them. She’s meticulous with each drawing, joy radiating off her, and it reminds me of that time I once found her in the library writing one of her tales in her secret notebook back in high school. Pride has my chest expanding seeing that passion still burning, that the harshness of the world never extinguished it. She still catches her bottom lip between her teeth as she concentrates, and I have to look away to hide my smile.
Neither of us are artists by a long shot, but it doesn’t matter. Warmth floods my veins, climbing into my chest and settling there. Sparking each time I look at Honey and see her smiling. It makes me feel like a kid—just playing and not having to think about a care in the world. Only making something good and joyous out of the moment. The kind of thing we missed out on growing up.
Well, except for when I was with her.
‘There,’ Honey says as she finishes her last flower. She takes a step back and admires our masterpiece. Then, she asks, ‘Where next?’
I can’t stop my grin from flashing. ‘Door jambs, Blue. Been shoved into those too many times.’
Honey takes my hand again with such ease and whisks me over to the archway we came through before I can stop to marvel at the way her hand fits in mine so well still. We start there, drawing more stars and flowers and all kinds of other things that come to mind. It doesn’t matter anymore what they are, because knowing they were drawn by us together will beat whatever bad memories lay beneath.
Eventually, we find ourselves side by side, sitting in the archway that leads to the stairs, glasses of milk on the floor beside us as we add pictures and shapes from the bottom up. There’s a few more chunks out of the wood on this archway, both near the bottom and top, likely from my dad kicking and punching it with rage.
This time, Honey hums as she draws, and all that tension, that darkness that fills my mind, starts to dissipate from the caress of her angelic voice and has me drawing happily over the dents. When I finish the sunshine I was drawing, I twist round to face her better and run a hand lightly across the small of her back, making her turn.
‘Blue.’ I grab our glasses, handing her hers as she turns. ‘Thank you.’
The softest smile graces her lips. ‘I told you before, didn’t I? When you’re not feeling whole, I’ll give you my strength. Just like you’ve been doing for me.’
She does remember.
Honey clinks her glass against mine and we both drink the last drops of our milk. When I swallow, Honey rolls her lips, eyes darting to my mouth and twinkling with amusement.
‘What?’ I ask, brows drawing in.
Her laughter bubbles out and the sound has my heart thumping. I remember when I used to make her do that allthe time. How much I craved hearing it. How much I still do.
‘Sorry, it’s just that you got milk in your—here, let me.’ Honey reaches through the space between us, rubbing her thumb across my upper lip and catching the bottom of my moustache, where milk must have lingered. The softness of her thumb, the way heat courses through me just from such a small touch, makes my body bristle with too many memories.
I catch her eyes as her thumb hovers at the corner of my mouth, where her gaze is locked on my lips, oblivious to me watching her. I can’t help but wet my lips, noting the way her pupils swallow up most of her irises. With what, I wonder. Want? Need? And is her blood rushing as quickly as mine right now?
When she finally glances up at me, her eyes flare and she swallows, the long column of her throat working. Now my eyes are on her mouth, drawn there by the trembling breaths that flow from her plush parted lips, wondering if they’d feel as good as they used to—
‘What’s going on?’
We both whip our heads around to find Noah at the top of the stairs, rubbing his eyes sleepily. He scrunches his face as he studies us.
‘Sorry, baby,’ Honey starts, lifting to her knees, as if readying to get up, but I circle her wrist keeping her in place gently. Not wanting this night to end yet. She furrows her brow at me, confusion painting her face, but doesn’t protest.
So, I turn back to Noah and plainly say, ‘We’re drawing over the bad memories I have in this house.’ Then, deciding I could use a few stick figurine cowboys about the place, I ask, ‘Wanna help?’
The way Honey’s face lights up at my offer almost has my legs shaking with the need to see that bright flash of appreciation in her again. That’s why I don’t even second-guess my decision when Noah toddles down the stairs and I pick him up in one quick sweep, settling him on my shoulders so he can draw on the higher parts. His adorable giggle echoes through the house, and I hand him the crayon I was using.
Honey reaches up to stroke Noah’s back, but her baby blues are locked on me, sparkling. I know that when the sun is up again, we’ll be back to purposefully making space between us, to pretending that the past is stuck there forever. But for the first time in a long time, I rather like the darkness in this house, because it’s where I found the light in Honey again. The light that once kept me going.
The light I don’t think I’ll stop chasing.
16
Honey (Flashback)
March, Senior Year